


And I Call It Magic

by dream_vs_nightmare



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff, F/M, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-24 00:45:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4899022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dream_vs_nightmare/pseuds/dream_vs_nightmare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I swear to God, if we make it out of this…”</p><p>“And we will-” He’s going for soothing, now, trying for magic again even as he bleeds a river.</p><p>Henry moves to hold her chin in one hand, then, smiling at her like for all the world, he’d been lying a moment ago. “Jo-”</p><p>They’ve not yet said it even after all these weeks and weeks together, not voiced these little words that at once mean nothing and everything. But through the haze of red and fear and pain, blinding pain, she thinks he’s going to. It’s in his smile, slow and soft, and in his eyes, wine-dark and warm.</p><p>Henry, Jo, and an almost I-love-you that gives way to a real one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I Call It Magic

**Author's Note:**

> Or, the (v, v late) tumblr ask box fic I finally got to the other day. This is more or less the original version, though plot points have been added here and there.
> 
> TW for brief mentions of blood.
> 
> Anonymous prompt: "The precinct is under attack. Jo and Henry are wounded but Jo's wound is far more serious...Henry keeps her alive until the precinct is cleared..he is close to dying himself, but the EMTs get there in time. Afterwards they have a heart to heart. Jo suggests that he should leave NYC 'forever'- established relationship. Thank you!"
> 
> Hope it lived up to your expectations, 'nonnie!

* * *

“You’re going to be okay.” Henry says in that soft, smooth way of his as he meets her eyes, fingers held taut over her wound. He’s using his I’m-a-doctor voice, words as warm and slow as honey left to sit out in the sun. There’s a certain sort of magic in his words, meant to be convincing as all else that leaves his mouth. And they would be were it not for the fear in his touch - she can feel it seep between them as the fingers of his free hand brush her hair away from her face. And it'd be nice if there wasn’t blood on his hands, warm and slick. But there is.

There’s blood everywhere, really. On her, on him, and probably pooled on the floor beneath them. The tile’s sticky with it, so sticky. When had they moved to the floor, anyway? She thinks they’d not so much moved there as crumpled there in a heap, him going down with her as her hands came away from her stomach red with blood.

“I swear to God, if we make it out of this…”

“And we will-” He’s going for soothing, now, trying for magic again even as he bleeds a river.  
  
Henry moves to hold her chin in one hand, then, smiling at her like for all the world, he’d been lying a moment ago. “Jo-”

They’ve not yet said it even after all these weeks and weeks together, not voiced these little words that at once mean nothing and everything. But through the haze of red and fear and pain, blinding pain, she thinks he’s going to. It’s in his smile, slow and soft, and in his eyes, wine-dark and warm.

“No. Nononono, hey, not here.” And then she’s reaching for him, too, voice low and soft as her hand kisses his stubbled cheek. “Don’t come out with confessions, now, Lucas’ll hold it against you forever.”

He laughs, then, low and dark and humorless as his gaze holds hers. “But you won’t, Jo. Because you can't-”

Henry gestures about them a moment, and the blood around them speaks to all he won’t say, can’t.  _Because you can’t live forever._  
  
He’s right. Damn it all to hell, he’s right. A siren’s wail drowns out the sound of his next words as her head hits the floor, but for a heavy, heady second, she thinks he’s just said it. She thinks he’s just told her that he’ll love her 'til his last dying day.

* * *

“I think you should go.” She says a good week later, sat with him in a wide windowed cafe. Two mugs of tea and a glossy menu sit between them, the tea gone mostly untouched and the menu gone mostly ignored. She's been running on caffeine for hours and hours now, shadows under her eyes whispering of sleep deprivation. It's not that she doesn't want to sleep (or eat, or smile, or laugh, or  _live),_ because she does. She wants and needs and aches to rest, to relax, to laugh like she really means it and smile like she hadn't been shot just seven days before. But she _was_ shot. She was shot and close to death (so close, she swore she could feel Sean's hand over hers again).

And so was Henry.

“I beg your pardon?” He asks then as he meets her eyes over the steam of their drinks, looking about as baffled as she’s ever seen him.

Well. Perhaps not quite as baffled as when she’d asked him out on a date, that first time.

“I think you should go.” She says again, looking to the window so she doesn’t have to look at him. 

It’s so much bloody easier if she doesn’t look at him. But God, she wants to.

He moves a hand atop hers and murmurs, “Go where, Jo?” in a voice that whispers and wants and aches for her to lie to him.

And she can’t. She can't, because she- well, she...No, she's not even going to finish that thought right now. She can't finish that thought right now.

“Somewhere else. Anywhere else. Seattle, maybe. Salem. It’d suit you, I think.” And then, thinking on it some more, “Or maybe some of your old favorites: Rome, Venice, Paris.” A laugh leaves her lips at that last suggestion, and it tastes bitter on her tongue - for they haven't gotten lost in Paris just yet, and the chaos of the past week had her thinking they probably wouldn’t. At least, not together.

"You could start over again, get lost in an old city..." There's a soft, sad and unspoken  _without me_  hanging in the air between them. And though she never says it, doesn't dare to, she thinks he hears it. It wouldn't surprise her, really, because he's always had a way of hearing every word she leaves unsaid.

“No.” He says once, then again as he squeezes her hand and looks into her eyes - even as she refuses to meet his. “No, I won’t.”

“But you should.” Her voice is fast-fading into a sob, and she swallows hard to get herself together some before she says, “You have to.”

It's not about the danger. They can handle danger, just as they do most everything else: together. No, it's about something far worse than any physical danger they could find themselves in. It's about someone (someone twisted and cold and  _empty_ , empty like Adam) discovering Henry's secret. It's about someone jeopardizing the life Henry's built for himself...and the life they've just begun building together.

“Jo.” There’s magic in his voice when he says her name, now. But this magic isn't the same sort that's in his I'm a doctor voice, or even in that of the distant and wistful tone he uses when talking of people and places long past. No, for the magic in his voice now is a magic that’s reserved for her and her alone.

It glimmers in his eyes when he looks to her and murmurs, “You know I can’t do that.”

“I know, I just-” She shakes her head as she finally turns to look at him. He’s smiling, some. “Thought I’d try.”

“And I thought I’d stay.” Henry says as he moves up and out of his seat, pressing a tender kiss to her forehead before settling back into the booth across from her once more, smiling all the wider.

For the first time in a week, she smiles back. Really smiles.

* * *

Later, much later, she cries. She cries for him, for her, for the precinct, the attack. It's been a long while since she's done this, just sat about the house by herself and bawled. It's almost funny, really. The tears had started out of frustration. She couldn't get the damn toaster oven to work.  _Again_.

So she'd started crying over that, and then it'd just snowballed into...into this. Her curled up on the couch in the living room, bawling. Now, she cries not just for him or for her or for the damned toaster oven. Not just for the precinct, the attack, Hanson and the others. Now, she cries over everything. And she thinks he knows the second he steps into the living room, can just tell as he leans up against the doorjamb.

“You know,” He starts, and she shoots him a withering look. Whenever someone close to him cries, he's usually one to launch into some sort of scientific reason for crying, the nature of grief, or some other nonsense she'd usually find endearing. She figures that today's going to be no exception to that rule, that he’s going to go on about how crying can be cathartic or that it’s to be expected after the hellish week they’ve had.

"Please." She sniffles into a tissue, then. "Save the science on crying for another time. Just this once."

Henry just smiles at her and murmurs, “There’s this Indian place just down the street,” Like she'd never brought it up at all, like he'd not just bared witness to her crying fest. He pauses a moment and then says, all soft and warm and easy, “And I hear they’ve an excellent take-away menu.”

Jo moves up and off the couch and into his arms in an instant, hugging him tight around the waist. “Thank you.”

“You don’t ever have to thank me for that, Detective.” He says in kind as he pulls her in close, hands warming her back through her shirt. It's comforting, this, and easy in a way she'd never envisioned just two years ago.

“It’s long past my turn to pay for dinner, anyway.” Henry adds a good moment later, to which she punches him square in the arm.

“Henry Morgan, you immortal piece of shit!” She thinks it’d sound better if she wasn’t laughing so hard.

“Yes, dearest?” He’s laughing too, now, as he tilts his head to the side in mock-question and moves towards the kitchen for the menu. Her mouth fills up with all these soft words of affection, of feeling, as he rummages around for the thing, muttering that it's got to be here somewhere. And she doesn't know what it is about this moment, doesn't know if it's him or her or the chaos of the last week, but she wants to tell him. Needs to. But it's only after they've placed their order with the take-away place that she finds the words.

“I love you.” She’s been waiting for some big moment to come out with it, been waiting for long weeks to let loose the words she’s held back and kept quiet for long. She'll admit she'd been a touch (okay, a lot) hesitant to even voice those feelings in the first place. Because, well...it'd been a while. For both of them, not just her. So she'd been on the fence about saying the words at all, had figured they'd cross that bridge (way) later in the game. But she’s saying them now and laughing, laughing, laughing as their foreheads come to rest together.

Henry’s answering smile could rival that of the afternoon sun as he looks to her, then. “And I love you, Jo.”

And then there are no words, only lips and hands and the many, many minutes before they’ve to go collect their take-away from the delivery person.

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh, I missed writing these two.
> 
> (And who knows, maybe I'll do a sequel one day.)


End file.
